Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 15

When the apothecary returned, he saw that his commands had been strictly obeyed; and finding that the change of atmosphere had wrought the expected alteration in his patient, he took his arm without difficulty and bled him. At the end of the operation Thaddeus again fainted.

"Poor gentleman!" cried Mr. Vincent, binding up the arm. "Look here, Tom," (pointing to the scars, on the count's shoulder and breast;) "see what terrible cuts have been here! This has not been playing at soldiers! Who is your lodger, Mrs. Robson?"

"His name is Constantine, Mr. Vincent; but for Heaven's sake recover him from that swoon."

Mr. Vincent poured more drops into his mouth; and a minute afterwards he opened his eyes, divested of their feverish glare, but still dull and heavy. He spoke to Mrs. Robson by her name, which gave her such delight, that she caught his hands to her lips and burst again into tears. The action was so abrupt and violent, that it made him feel the stiffness of his arm. Casting his eyes towards the surgeon's, he conjectured what had been his state, and what the consequence.

"Come, Mrs. Robson," said the apothecary, "you must not disturb the gentleman. How do you find yourself, sir?"

As the deed could not be recalled, Thaddeus thanked the doctor for the service he had received, and said a few kind and grateful words to his good hostess.

Mr. Vincent was glad to see so promising an issue to his proceedings, and soon after retired with his a.s.sistant and Mrs. Robson, to give further directions.

On entering the parlor, she threw herself into a chair and broke into a paroxysm of lamentations.

"My good woman, what is all this about?" inquired the doctor. "Is not my patient better?"

"Yes," cried she, drying her eyes; "but the whole scene puts me so in mind of the last moments of my poor misguided son, that the very sight of it goes through my heart like a knife. Oh! had my boy been as good as that dear gentleman, had he been as well prepared to die, I think I would scarcely have grieved! Yet Heaven spare Mr.

Constantine. Will he live?"

"I hope so, Mrs. Robson. His fever is high; but he is young, and with extreme care we may preserve him."

"The Lord grant it!" cried she, "for he is the best gentleman I ever beheld. He has been above a week with me; and till this night, in which he lost his senses, though hardly able to breath or see, he has read out of books which he brought with him; and good books too: for it was but yesterday morning that I saw the dear soul sitting by the fire with a book on the table, which he had been studying for an hour. As I was dusting about, I saw him lay his head down on it, and put his hand to his temples. 'Alas!, sir,' said I, 'you tease your brains with these books of learning when you ought to be taking rest.' No, Mrs. Robson,' returned he, with a sweet smile, 'it is this book which brings me rest. I may amuse myself with others, but this alone contains perfect beauty, perfect wisdom, and perfect peace. It is the only infallible soother of human sorrows.' He closed it, and put it on the chimney-piece; and when I looked at it afterwards, I found it was the Bible. Can you wonder that I should love so excellent a gentleman?"

"You have given a strange account of him," replied Vincent. "I hope he is not a twaddler; [Footnote: A term of derision, forty years ago, amongst unthinking persons, when speaking of eminently religious people.] if so, I shall despair of his cure, and think his delirium had another cause besides fever."

"I don't understand you, sir. He is a Christian, and as good a reasonable, sweet-tempered gentleman as ever came into a house. Alas!

I believe he is most likely a papist; though they say papists don't read the Bible, but wors.h.i.+p images."

"Why, what reason have you to suppose that? He's an Englishman, is he not?"

"No, he is an emigrant."

"An emigrant! Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Vincent, with a contemptuous twirl of his lip. "What, a poor Frenchman! Good Lord! how this town is overrun with these fellows!"

"No, doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Robson, greatly hurt at this scorn to her lodger, whom she really loved; "whatever he be, he is not poor, for he has a power of fine things; he has got a watch all over diamonds, and diamond rings, and diamond pictures without number. So, doctor, you need not fear you are attending him for charity; no, I would sell my gown first."

"Nay, don't be offended, Mrs. Robson; I meant no offence," returned he, much mollified by this explanation; "but, really, when we see the bread that should feed our children and our own poor eaten up by a parcel of lazy French drones--all _Sans Culottes_ [The democratic rabble were commonly so called at that early period of the French Revolution; and certainly some of their demagogues did cross the Channel at times, counterfeiting themselves to be loyal emigrants, while a.s.siduously disseminating their destructive principles wherever they could find an entrance.] in disguise, for aught we know, who cover our land, and destroy its produce like a swarm of filthy locusts--we should be fools not to murmur. But Mr.----, Mr.----, what do you call him, Mrs. Robson? is a different sort of body."

"Mr. Constantine," replied she, "and indeed he is; and no doubt, when you recover him, he will pay you as though he were in his own country."

This last a.s.sertion banished all remaining suspicion from the mind of the apothecary; and, after giving the good woman what orders he thought requisite, he returned home, promising to call again in the evening.

Mrs. Robson went up stairs to the count's chamber with other sentiments to her sapient doctor than those with which she came down.

She well recollected the substance of his discourse, and she gathered from it that, however clever he might be in his profession, he was a hard-hearted man, who would rather see a fellow-creature perish than administer relief to him without a reward. She had paid him to the uttermost farthing for her poor son.

But here Mrs. Robson was mistaken. She did him justice in esteeming his medical abilities, which were great. He had made medicine the study of his life, and not allowing any other occupation to disturb his attention, he became master of that science, but remained ignorant of every other with which it had no connection. He was the father of a family, and, in the usual acceptation of the term, a very good sort of a man. He preferred his country to every other, because it was his country; he loved his wife and his children; he was kind to the poor, to whom he gave his advice gratis, and letters to the dispensary for drugs; and when he had any broken victuals to spare, he desired that they might be divided amongst them; but he seldom caught his maid obeying this part of his commands without reprimanding her for her extravagance, in giving away what ought to be eaten in the kitchen: "in these times, it was a shame to waste a crumb, and the careless hussy would come to want for thinking so lightly of other people's property."

Thus, like many in the world, he was a loyal citizen by habit, an affectionate father from nature, and a man of charity because he now and then felt pity, and now and then heard it preached from the pulpit. He was exhorted to be pious, and to pour wine and oil into the wounds of his neighbor; but it never once struck him that piety extended further than going to church, mumbling his prayers and forgetting the sermon, through most of which he generally slept; and his commentaries on the good Samaritan were not more extensive, for it was so difficult to make him comprehend who was his neighbor, that the subject of the argument might have been sick, dead and buried before he could be persuaded that he or she had any claims on his care. Indeed, his "chanty began at home;" and it was so fond of its residence, that it stopped there. To have been born on the other side of the British Channel, spread an ocean between every poor foreigner and Mr. Vincent's purse which the swiftest wings of chanty could never cross. "He saw no reason," he said, "for feeding the natural enemies of our country. Would any man be mad enough to take the meat from his children's mouths and throw it to a swarm of wolves just landed on the coast?" "These wolves" were his favorite metaphor when he spoke of the unhappy French, or of any other penniless strangers that came in his way.

After this explanation, it may appear paradoxical to mention an inconsistency in the mind of Mr. Vincent which never permitted him to discover the above Cainish mark of outlawry upon a wealthy visitor, of whatever country. In fact, it was with him as with many: riches were a splendid and thick robe that concealed all blemishes; take it away, and probably the poor stripped wretch would be treated worse than a criminal.

That his new patient possessed some property was sufficient to ensure the respect and medical skill of Mr. Vincent; and when he entered his own house, he told his wife he had found "a very good job at Mrs.

Robson's, in the illness of her lodger--a foreigner of some sort," he said, "who, by her account, had feathered his nest well in the spoils of battle (like Moore's honest Irishman) with jewels and gold." So much for the accuracy of most quotations adopted according to the convenience of the speaker.

When the Count Sobieski quitted the Hummums, on the evening in which he brought away his baggage, he was so disconcerted by the impertinence of the man who accosted him there, that he determined not to expose himself to a similar insult by retaining a t.i.tle which might subject him to the curiosity of the insolent and insensible; and, therefore, when Mrs. Robson asked him how she should address him, as he was averse to a.s.sume a feigned name, he merely said Mr.

Constantine.

Under that un.o.btrusive character, he hoped in time to accommodate his feelings to the change of fortune which Providence had allotted to him. He must forget his n.o.bility, his pride, and his sensibility; he must earn his subsistence. But by what means? He was ignorant of business; and he knew not how to turn his accomplishments to account.

Such were his meditations, until illness and delirium deprived him of them and of reason together.

At the expiration of a week, in which Mr. Vincent attended his patient very regularly, Sobieski was able to remove into the front room; but uneasiness about the debts he had so unintentionally incurred r.e.t.a.r.ded his recovery, and made his hours pa.s.s away in cheerless musings on his poor means of repaying the good widow and of satisfying the avidity of the apothecary. Pecuniary obligation was a load to which he was unaccustomed; and once or twice the wish almost escaped his heart that he had died.

Whenever he was left to think, such were his reflections. Mrs. Robson discovered that he appeared more feverish and had worse nights after being much alone during the day, and therefore contrived, though she was obliged to be in her little shop, to leave either Nanny to attend his wants or little William to amuse him.

This child, by its uncommon quickness and artless manner, gained upon the count, who was ever alive to helplessness and innocence. Children and animals had always found a friend and protector in him. From the "majestic war-horse, with his neck clothed in thunder," to "the poor beetle that we tread upon"--every creature of creation met an advocate of mercy in his breast; and as human nature is p.r.o.ne to love what it has been kind to, Thaddeus never saw either children, dogs, or even that poor slandered and abused animal, the cat, without showing them some spontaneous act of attention.

Whatever of his affections he could spare from memory, the count lavished upon the little William. The child hardly ever left his side, where he sat on a stool, prattling about anything that came into his head; or, seated on his knee, followed with his eyes and playful fingers the hand of Thaddeus, while he sketched a horse or a soldier for his pretty companion.

CHAPTER XIV.

A ROBBERY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

By these means Thaddeus slowly acquired sufficient strength to allow him to quit his dressing-gown, and prepare for a walk.

A hard frost had succeeded to the chilling damps of November; and looking out of the window, he longed, almost eagerly, to inhale again the fresh air. After some tender altercations with Mrs. Robson, who feared to trust him even down stairs, he at length conquered; and taking the little William by his hand, folded his pelisse round him, and promising to venture no further than the King's Mews, was suffered to go out.

As he expected, he found the keen breeze act like a charm on his debilitated frame; and with braced nerves and exhilarated spirits, he walked twice up and down the place, whilst his companion played before him, throwing stones, and running to pick them up. At this moment one of the king's carriages, pursued by a concourse of people, suddenly drove in at the Charing-Cross gate. The frightened child screamed, and fell. Thaddeus darted forward, and seizing the heads of the horses which were within a yard of the boy, stopped them; meanwhile, the mob gathering about, one of them raised William, who continued his cries. The count now let go the reins, and for a few minutes tried to pacify his little charge; but finding that his alarm and shrieks were not to be quelled, and that his own figure, from its singularity of dress, (his high cap and plume adding to its height) drew on him the whole attention of the people, he took the trembling child in his arms, and walking through the Mews, was followed by some of the bystanders to the very door of Mrs. Robson's shop.

Seeing the people, and her grandson sobbing on the breast of her guest, she ran out, and hastily asked what had happened. Thaddeus simply answered, that the child had been frightened. But when they entered the house, and he had thrown himself exhausted on a seat, William, as he stood by his knee, told his grandmother that if Mr.

Constantine had not stopped the horses, he must have been run over.

The count was now obliged to relate the whole story, which ended with the blessings of the poor woman, for his goodness in risking his own life for the preservation of her darling child.

Thaddeus in vain a.s.sured her the action deserved no thanks.

"Well," cried she, "it is like yourself, Mr. Constantine; you think all your good deeds nothing; and yet any odd little thing I can do, out of pure love to serve you, you cry up to the skies. However, we won't fall out; I say, heaven bless you! and that is enough. Has your walk refreshed you? But I need not ask; you have got a fine color."

"Yes," returned he, rising and taking off his cap and cloak, "it has put me in aglow, and made me quite another creature." As he finished speaking, he dropped the things from the hand that held them, and staggered back a few paces against the wall.

"Good Lord! what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Robson, looking in his face, which was now pale as death; "what is the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing," returned he, recovering himself, and gathering up the cloak he had let fall; "don't mind me, Mrs. Robson; nothing:" and he was leaving the kitchen, but she followed him, terrified at his look and manner.